


back to the top of the slide we go

by hariboo



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vala's vacation took an interesting and very unplanned turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	back to the top of the slide we go

Vala scratched her nose, frowning, not for the first time, at the ergonomic nightmare that was the control room of a cargo ship. It wasn't that the ship didn't serve its purpose well, but the chairs were just supremely uncomfortable if you sat in them for more than two days. And she had been on the blasted ship for just over a month.

Alone, at that. It hadn't been exactly by choice, but things just sort of ended up that way after one too many days of being locked (for all intents and purposes) in the SGC with hardly anyone around. If she had been the petty sort she would have been insulted that the Generals hadn't thought she was fit to join the rest of SG-1 on whatever little mission they were on. It was probably one to save the galaxy, again. Instead of moaning about it, which she will admit she did as the team packed, she chose to look at her "grounding" as an unofficial vacation.

Thinking back on it, she supposed that maybe just leaving that letter on Daniel's desk might have not been the best way of letting people know. She could even imagine the fit he had had reading the note, which only had consisted of three very simple sentences.

_Dearest Daniel, _

_The SGC has just been unforgivably boring these last few weeks. I'm going on a trip. Be back in a few months, maybe. _

_Love Vala. _

_PS. _

_FYI, I do love these post scripts you explained to me, though for the life of me I don't understand why your people just don't put the thoughts in the letter, but I digress. Where was I? Oh, right, PS: I would have brought you (or at least Muscles along) but you were all so busy doing whatever it was with Jack I just didn't have the time to kidnap you again. Don't forget to water Petunia!_

_Again, love, _

_Vala. _

Yes, Vala had the distinct impression Daniel hadn't been too happy with the letter, or with the fact she borrowed Samantha's newest pet project: a cargo ship with a prototype hyperdrive. In Vala's defense, she felt she was being a good friend and testing it out for Samantha. Doing her friend a favor. Honest. Still, looking back on it, she _should_ have written a letter to Samantha as well, but that thought had occurred to Vala two weeks into her trip and by then it had been too late.

This being the case of her self appointed holiday, Vala knew she could only blame herself (though she really, really, _really_, didn't want to) for her current circumstances.

Namely, being stranded at the edges of the Pegasus Galaxy with a malfunctioning engine and hyperdrive. She probably should have paid more attention to Samantha's report on the bugs she still needed to work out on this ship and its hyperdrive, but Samantha had also said it was working at eighty-five percent capability, which was more than fifty percent, and that was more than enough for Vala to consider it as her ride to Atlantis.

It had been a while since she visited the city and they seemed to be having much more fun than the SGC as of late. It was the perfect vacation spot, plus no one in the Pegasus Galaxy had a bounty on her head, which sadly was still the case in more than a few planets in the Milky Way.

At least, she didn't think she any pending bounties in Pegasus. You never knew with these alien worlds. Word travelled much farther than the Tau'ri thought.

Unfortunately, only a few days away from the city, the hyperdrive of the ship started malfunctioning on her and then broke down in a spectacular demonstration of sparks. Forced out of hyperspace in the small ship, Vala had spent the next two days trying to fix and would have if she had access to Samantha's lab, sadly still on Earth. Not even her sure fire way of kicking said piece of machinery worked this time, dampening Vala's spirits.

She only hoped that when rescue came—SG-1 was always very good at the last minute rescue—Samantha would appreciate the notes Vala had on how to improve the integration of a hyperdrive engine with a cargo ship. It was really only a matter of networking a few systems so they didn't overload. Simple, really. If only she had the tools to fix it herself.

Alas, she didn't, so Vala knew she only had one option left. Put out a SGC standard encrypted signal, cloak, and wait for the Daedalus, or SG-1. Whoever came first. Currently three days in on her wait, she had already remodeled the sparse cargo ship, twice. Maybe later on she'd see if she could change the language settings from English back to Goa'uld for fun…

Resting her feet on the consul in front of her, Vala picked at her finger nails, hoping the _Daedalus_ had left Earth a week earlier than they had been scheduled. If they had they then they would be reaching the edges of Pegasus in a matter of days. If they hadn't she still had a week to wait. Thankfully all the important systems, like air, food storage, water, and lavatory services were up and running so she didn't have to worry too much, that is until her six week supply of food ran out.

She was five weeks in.

The thought came on the heels of her opening a bag of crisps, and she eyed the junk food warily before stuffing it her mouth. So she was bored-eating, or whatever it was called, if the Ancients didn't want her to die, and _gods, did they owe her_, then they'd send Daniel along just in time. One bag of crisps couldn't hurt.

Staring out into space, she contemplated trying out her little plan of linking the subspace engines with the hyperdrive and the cloaking systems when a shrill beep came from the consul.

Someone was close by and picking up on her signal.

Maybe those boring old Ancients did listen!

In an instant she sat up, ready to give Daniel or Caldwell a speech on timing when she heard:

"This is the battleship _Athena_, please identify yourself."

Maybe not.

At the unfamiliar voice, Vala paused her hand over the communication controls. Earth had no ship called the Athena, and neither did any of the allies Vala knew about. But that wasn't what was making Vala wary. This ship, whoever it was, knew she was there, cloaked, and as far as she knew no ships in either galaxy could detect a cloaked cargo ship.

This could mean trouble.

Vala waited, not answering, hoping that they would think she was glitch and move past her when she heard them on her comms again.

"We repeat, this is the battleship _Athena_, please identify yourself. If you do not, we will take this as an act of aggression against the Pegasus galaxy and shoot you down."

This time, Vala narrowed her eyes. Were they _challenging_ her?

Vala raised an eyebrow. She had never backed down from a challenge before, if you didn't count that incident of Katana, which she didn't.

Opening her comms, she steeled her voice, "Well, now, that's just unneighborly, I'll have you know! I'm not hurting anyone as I wait here quietly, am I?"

"Identify yourself."

Vala smirked, "Actually, I think you should identify yourselves first. You were the ones to rudely interrupt my holiday."

There was a pause for a few seconds.

"We are the battleship Athena." As the message came over the comms, Vala watched as a rather familiar, but utterly unrecognizable ship came into view. _Hmm, curious._

"Yes, you already said that. I meant, who are you affiliated with?" Vala paused, remembering the stories she had heard from Cameron and the Atlantis members when they had returned to Earth the previous year. "Are you Genii? I didn't think you lot had ships."

As she stalled for time, she was working furiously on getting the subspace engines online and getting as far away as possible, hoping they wouldn't care to follow her.

"Who are you and how do you know about the Genii? Uncloak yourself, your ship is in our crosshairs. You have no way out of this."

"Aren't you demanding!" Unhappy with the situation, Vala uncloaked, hoping to buy time as she tried to reroute some of the secondary systems into powering the barely working EM pulse that Sam had installed on the cargo ship after hearing about Caius'. It was a long shot, but she had gotten out of tougher scraps.

The second she uncloaked, the comms came to life again. A new voice speaking, "I thought it was you, Vala."

Vala blinked, completely shocked that this foreign alien ship knew who she was. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

"Turn on your vid screen, please."

Pursing her lips, Vala considered running, but the whole situation had just gotten interesting. Mentally hoping for the best, she did as asked and turned on the vid screen.

The person that appeared was quick possibly the last person Vala had ever expected to be her rescue party.

"Dr. Weir!"

On screen, the familiar face of Elizabeth Weir smiled, "Hello, Vala. It's good to see you again."

Vala laughed, "I have to admit I'm surprised to see you, I heard a nasty rumor that you were dead!"

"Yes, well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm afraid the rumors of my death have been vastly exaggerated." Elizabeth spoke carefully, each of her words heavy with a strong undercurrent of bitterness that Vala wisely chose not to address.

Instead, Vala grinned, "Good on you! Proving the bastards wrong!" She paused, "Is that the right quote? I tend to mix my pop culture references around. Cameron loves to correct me."

Elizabeth quirked her lips, "I think you meant 'not letting the bastards get you when you're down.'"

"Right, then, that too. Now, Dr. Weir, since we've reacquainted, I don't suppose you would mind giving me a little help. I appear to be..."

"Stuck?" Elizabeth finished for her.

Vala leaned forward in her chair, shrugging, "I was going to go with mobility challenged, but yes. I am stuck. I guess it serves me right for borrowing a prototype, though it did work fabulously for quite a while."

"I can only imagine. I didn't know that cargo ships could travel in hyperspace yet." Elizabeth spoke, a hint of curiosity sparkling in her eyes.

"Samantha's been making some fantastic headway in that field." Vala shared proudly.

"Good for her," Elizabeth nodded, "so would you rather us beam you board, or do you think you can fly the ship into our cargo hold?"

Vala smirked, tapping her chin with a finger, "I'd love to say yes to either option, but I'm afraid I can't, Dr. Weir. At least not without some assurances first."

"Oh?"

"Yes, well, another nasty rumor making it was around the SGC is that you're, and I'm sorry to be so impolitically correct about this, but I've heard from various sources that you just might a Replicator. And while I certainly don't judge lifestyle choices, you can understand how I'd be wary of being aboard your ship."

The image of Elizabeth on her screen only smiled, slowly, and leaned back in her chair. "Of course, Vala, I understand perfectly. What would be your conditions for coming aboard?"

Vala smiled widely and began to tick off her terms, "First of all," she started but never finished as a bright light surrounded her and next thing she knew Vala was in the cockpit of Elizabeth Weir's ship.

"I want the supplies to be…" Vala trailed off, looking at the sleek ship surrounding her and Elizabeth sitting smugly in front of her. "Hey, now that's cheating!"

Elizabeth stood, stepping towards Vala. "I'm sorry, Vala, but we would have just wasted precious time getting you to come aboard and there's a Wraith ship we were hunting just on the edges on a nearby system when we picked up your signal. You were very luck that they didn't find you first."

Vala pursed her lips, turning to the wide windows behind her, "Yes, I guess you can call it luck. I like to call it expert timing, but to each his own. Now, about my ship? I can't very well leave it here."

"We're pulling it in as we speak," Elizabeth made a motion and one of the oddly dressed crew members got to work.

"Hmm, thank you." Vala watched as the cargo ships was pulled closer and closer to the larger ship. "Now, Elizabeth, I hate to be an ungrateful guest, but how can I be sure that you're not planning to assimilate me? You are part Replicator, are you not?"

Elizabeth's eyes seemed to flash at that, but Vala shrugged the guilt way. It wasn't like there was any other way to approach her increasingly unplanned situation.

"Yes, I am, Vala, but I assure that I am also very much the same Elizabeth Weir you knew before. I just have some, I guess you can call them, upgrades. You're perfectly safe here, and I feel I should add, I'm not Borg."

Vala chuckled, unsure, but was willing to go on, as Cameron would say, a little faith.

This was Elizabeth after all, and Vala wasn't getting any sort of evil and dangerous vibes from her. Though, the leather was definitely an improvement in uniform. Vala wondered if Elizabeth had an extra jacket she could borrow.

Eyeing Elizabeth, Vala stretched and rolled hers shoulders, "I guess I shouldn't say no to a helping hand, and if anyone knows how to get to Atlantis it would be you."

Elizabeth tensed. "Vala, we'll help you fix your ship and get you as close to Atlantis as possible, but we won't approach the city ourselves," she said, her voice low and strained.

At that Vala turned towards the other woman as certain things became clear, "They don't know about you, do they?"

"No, and I'd like to keep it that way. For now, at least."

Vala was about to question Elizabeth, but decided to back down catching the look in Elizabeth's eyes. "That's fine, I'm in no rush to get to the city at any rate."

"Oh, you're not?" Elizabeth looked at her curiously.

"No! Weren't you listening? I was on a little vacation when the hyperdrive engine broke down on me, and I have a feeling Daniel and the others might need a few more weeks to cool down."

Elizabeth chuckled, "I take it you borrowed the ship."

Vala flashed her smile, "You say borrowed much like Daniel does when he's implying I've stolen something."

"Imagine that."

Giving the new and very large ship an appraising look, Vala walked over to Elizabeth's captain chair and draped herself on it, "So, my dear Elizabeth, what fun have you been up to?"

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at her actions,"Get out of my chair, Vala, and I'll fill you in."

Vala rolled her eyes but complied, this vacation was suddenly looking _much_ more interesting than she had even planned.


End file.
